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So there I was at the store for a simple shopping expedition. All of a sudden I was at the spice aisle and I got the message from God. To test my obedience he wanted me to purchase one of each spice packet. There were over 50. I fought it but it came stronger and stronger. If I did not obey, I would melt to the ground in embarassment. I hesitantly began to take one of each off the shelf. I was fine until I stopped putting them in my basket, then I would begin to melt. I had to buy one of each until the bottom row even though some of them were doubles. I went to pay and embarassed by my purchase I muttered something like, “I am going to try some new recipes”. The checker did not question my purchase. It cost me over $200!

I told my friend who I believe suffered from shared psychotic disorder. We laughed about the craziness of it. Other things had happened continually but this was the craziest request from God. I gave her half of them and kept the rest using them over the next year.

The point is that it was not God asking me to do this crazy thing. It was the Schizophrenia and there is no denying it. Things like this don’t happen anymore. With medication I am able to go to the store and have a normal shopping experience.

When I hear about people who have Schizophrenia in the media who kill people I think I am very lucky that my craziest moments were about buying spice packets. But I feel for them because when it hits there is no control over what I did when I was psychotic. I definitely think people who get in trouble with the law should have some leniancy on their actions while delsuional.

When I was psychotic I received many messages from heaven I believed. I even had other people believe my messages, 2 people in particular. When I entered the psychiatric ward it rocked their world. Once I started on the medication the messages ceased entirely for the most part.

Then 2 years or so later something happened I would like to share.

It is a long story so bear with me.

I had a dear friend who let me go because I became Catholic. She was an evangelical Christian and just couldn’t get past the fact that I was now Catholic. I remember she called me one day at 6 in the morning because she had a dream that I had died in a terrible accident and had gone to hell and left behind my kids and husband.

We had another friend who she maintained the friendship although at one time the three of us had been best of friends. This friend died in a terrible car accident about a year after my friend had the dream that I had died. I went to the funeral but did not speak to my friend there who had the dream although I did call her to extend my symptathy. The call was not well received. This friend who died left behind a husband and children.

Fast forward 3 years and I received a call from the friend who had let me go. She was sorry for letting me go and wanted to see me. I had already forgiven her for I understood her position so I readily agreed. Then I checked my calendar and realized she had called me on the anniversary of our friend’s death. I asked her if she knew this. She did not.

We met and picked up like no time had passed. The next thing that happened was we were in my backyard with the kids and I was walking over to the side of the house to do something and I heard a message from God to tell her that God wanted her to become Catholic. This was the first time since I had been on medicine that I heard from heaven. It was very clear what God was asking but I did not want to do it because I knew it would not be well received.

As I approached my friend, she asked me point blank what message God had for her. I said I didn’t care to say. She insisted upon it. So I did. A few days later she called and told me that she felt it best not to be friends again. I hold no anger toward her, but what I believe is that God does not want us to be friends- that It will interfere with what God wants me to do. Isn’t that bizzare?

I had not heard from God again until 2 years later. Once again God gave me a message for somebody else that did not go over well and once again a part of my life closed. So I do feel that when God wants something he will intervene according to his purposes.

I feel better when I do not recieve these sorts of messages, but when they come I cannot deny them. I share all of these thoughts with my psychiatrist and he never ups my dosage but believes that when other people are hearing some sort of message too that it may be real and it only happens every few years.

So to be totally honest, I am not open with my mental disorder. I tried that at my last job and it didn’t work out so well. All of a sudden my decisions were questioned and I was treated differently.

At my current job I did recently disclose to a colleague that I had Schizophrnia and gave her a draft of a book I am working on. She does not treat me any different but I am not disclosing it to my current boss. I am a very high functioning person who has a mental disorder that is under control. There is no need to “come out” with everyone.

I have mixed emotions about this. I would like the world to know but it seems that the stigma is out to get me and no I am not just being paranoid.

Why am I writing this blog? I want to give hope to others especially those who have been newly diagnosed that recovery is possibile with medication. I take my meds every day no matter how I feel because I know that without them my mind will deteriorate and I do not want that to happen. I will let you know when my book is ready to be published and in the mean time, I will try to write here some of what is in the book.

If you suffer from Schizophrenia I encourage you to take the poll below.

I don’t know about anyone else but conflict really stresses me out. Like when I see someone on the road who is raging I get really upset inside and pray for them.

Or when two people are in an argument that I am not even a part of, that too gets me stressed. I must admit that I take a low dosage of Ativan for stress and I pretty much take it every day with a cup of coffee so I dont’ get too drowsy. I only take it on days I work or if I know I will be in a stressul situation, I hope to not need it but for now a very low dosage really helps me out.

Some other ways I destress are to take a hot bath or shower, reading, writing, talking to a friend who is supportive and unfortunately eating. Meditation and deep breathing can also be helpful!

I used to be very prideful- then I was given the gift of Schizophrenia. It has truly humbled me but although I have prayed for a healing of the mind, I am not relieved of Schizophrenia. I know this because of my recent relapse.

The psychiatrists give us medication to take for the rest of our lives. How do we know we need it still say 5 or 10 years later? In my case my relapse helped me to know that I do still suffer from this mental condition.

I would like to describe when I exactly received this gift.

I had prayed to be able to suffer for our Lord and He answered me surely one night when I was at Mass. The priests were walking around blessing people with holy water and us the people were renewing our baptismal promises, rebuking satan and the like.

All of a sudden while they were doing the sprinkling I felt deep to my core the holy water. My whole body felt it to my soul. My head almost exploded with sensation and I knew something tremendous was occurring although I did no trealize it was the gift of Schizophrenia until much later. After Mass, I stayed in afterwards and was immersed in prayer and the tremendous suffering began. Soon after that the voices began, the voice of Jesus himself and Mary giving me instructions. The only problem was that the things i was told to do never worked out. It was very frustrating this time of confusion.

I even had others belieiving me that I was hearing from God. There were two cases of shared psychotic disorder that could have been diagnosed, but never were. One person still believes I am special and the other one I have lost contact with due to the stress on our friendship. When one is hearing messages from above and ends up in the psych ward, it can be very painful fot the one who believed with all her heart that her dear friend was a messenger of God.

That is just a little bit of my story. I am sure many of you can relate with your own versions of the delusions that can be very painful. I still to this day do not understand everything and quite honestly i don’t think I am supposed to. I just put one foot in front of the other and if I feel like God wants me to do something outside of the ordinary I wait and make sure it is a good idea. When I am not on medication I must obey so it is much better now being in touch iwth reality.

Recovery is possible after psychosis. I was psychotic in and out for about one year. I knew something was amiss when everything that happened outside of me seemed to pertain to me to a very great degree.

Then I went on medication and it all came to a screeching halt. The visions, the hallucinations, the thought insertion. No more.

I actually missed it, after a while, getting used to the quiet in my brain.

So what does one do when one comes back to reality? It took some time getting used to it, and seriously I felt as if a very good friend had died. But I reached a new normal, a normal that was without excitement and drama. I prefer it now but that definite grieving period was very hard.

When one is receiving messages from heaven and it all stops, it is going to be hard to live life without it.

Now I am much stronger. I do not hear voices or feel like the universe is centered around me. And it feels good. It feels right.

Today I was at church and I realized that truly I am not the most special person in the universe and I was happy. That is a great burden to feel like you are more special than everybody else. It is only recently that I have finally felt less special. Don’t get me wrong. I still believe that we are all special. That we all have a greater purpose in life. But I am not the greatest I can finally admit and it is very freeing.

I went through stages. These stages were one step forward, one step backward and so forth.

Writing has helped. Talking to others does not. Nobody understands what I went through, although people can symptathize with me.

Finding new meaning in life has been the greatest help. I now help others recover from mental disorders. Not that we all are called to do that, but for me helping to bring about positive change in children’s lives has been my saving grace. Other ways to help could be to help out at a homeless shelter or church. I also go to AA and help out there as well. If one is not called to helping people the local animal shelter is another avenue. Giving back is what is important, not exactly what one does.

After trying Abilify, which caused major side effects, I went off medication for a while on my doctor’s orders. Because I was so high functioning, we had to make sure I really had a mental disorder. Now I am not a doctor but from what I have read when one has Schizophrenia the sooner you start taking the medicine the sooner the psychosis will stop and your brain will begin to recover. My theory is that when I started to take the Abilify the psychosis ended and the healing began ending the defiinite psychotic period of my life. After a couple of months being off the medication, I started to really deteriorate. Not psychosis, I believe, but more delusional believing everything was connected to me (even the gas prices) and I began to be passively suicidal.

At that point I knew I needed medication. At my reques,t my psychiatrist hospitalized me and began me on Risperdal, I forget the dosage. The next day I felt better and the symptoms started to fade pretty quick. But my appetite went crazy, which I had lost entirely prior to the hospitalization. I remember eating 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches and still being hungry. Over the next 6 months my appetite did not cease and I gained 50 pounds which I kept on until recently.

Other side effects are that I have a hard time feeling emotion. Crying is hard (before I cried all the time) and laughing is rare. This loss of emotions has been very hard for a very emotional person. I have been told I still have a good personality but I feel like I am not like I was before Risperdal. I continue to be on it to this day and although I am very grateful it keeps symptoms at bay, I wouldn’t mind if I had more emotions. I really don’t know how to conquer this side effect but I do try to laugh and cry and feel anger. I guess it is better this way- to not be psychotic….

I have not experienced many of the other symptoms so for the most part this medication works really well.

Victoria

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Stress can be a good thing but for those of us who suffer from a mental disorder, certain stress can lead to relapse. One of the best things I can recommend is to avoid people who stress you out. Recognize people who are good for you and surround yourself with them. Limit actiivity with family members who are nonsupportive of you and your mental disorder (if they know about it because not everyone needs to know I have found). I recently, again, found myself around someone who had very high expectations of me and what I was capable of to a detrimental degree. I now only speak to her every now and again rather than frequently and it is the best thing for me. I am learning as I go on in life. I hope my experience will help someone else to avoid this kind of stress, because for me relapse is not something I ever want to experience again.

For those newly diagnosed with a mental disorder. I implore you to be easy on yourself. Yes, life will be different but medicine is amazing and can truly bring one back to a sane future. It is not easy this life burdened with a diagnosis. But it can be good. I say this because it is good for me after years of difficulties, to finally have a diagnosis was freeing. I did tons of reserach about my disorder, its prognosis, treatment, different medications and how to recover. I have read many books by many different people with mental disorders and have concluded that while some people can recover without medicine, most people will need to be on mediciation for the rest of their lives and I am one of them. Having a psychiatirist you trust is probably the most important thing. Putting one’s mental health into the hands of a stranger is scary enough, but I cannot imagine what it would be like to not trust him completely. Educate yourself as you are able and trust that in this time and age, modern medicine is awesome! Take your medication fatihfully and give yourself time to adjust to its effects. Hang on to the hope that many people do recover from Schizophrenia and don’t ever lose hope!